STAMMER – Research 2009 – 2010
“Stammer” is a multidimensional and multimedia art project that utilizes texts, drawings, videos, and installation. The idea is represented in seven separate parts of which the first was exhibited in 2007 in a group exhibition entitled “Occidentalism”. The first part of the series was entitled “Stammer” (an interactive project). Each part of this project reflects a different dimension, yet all share a common concept, which is based on the input of the interactive organic unity of mental and physical activity under the influence of the disability of both realms to express themselves individually in a free socially interactive manner. Here the input of this organic unity is related to many other areas of research such as the concept of “disability” in its abstract form as well as the relationship between the physical and the metaphysical, the theoretical and the materialistic, subjectivity and objectivity, and finally the concept of oppression, as opposed to freedom.
The idea represents the creative aspects of mental “psychological” states and the origin of consciousness. The combination of time, distance, place, relations, names, situations, and actions creates this elaborate map of the persona. It is through those elements that our existence gains meaning and limitation in our minds within a virtual mental environment.
Stammer is the moment where the conscious mind loses control, for it is always bound within three parallel planes: “The mind”, “The Physical Existence” and the “Power of Imagination”. Control is a result of the forces of determination and order that decide which plane will be presented to interact with the outside world. At the same time, I try to move consciously through those planes to other areas of extreme subjectivity derived from my personal memories and subjective history through a virtual conceptual logic.
It is this exceptional frozen moment when I feel in communion with myself and where everything stops moving and appears to be more vivid and poetic. It is the moment when universal relations become crystallized, and secrets and meanings come to life. Every line gains an exceptional straightness. I observe myself from a distance, my face is in a concentric position in relation to the blackboard in my class and everything appears in perfect symmetry. I then try to create that unity alongside that green space in my mind.
This is a multimedia installation utilizing text, images, recordings, videos, photography, and drawings in an archival form that resembles in a way the artist’s studio. All the combined media come to envision the concept of “research” as a conceptual structure that demands information gathering, categorizing, and inventorying.
The main objective of the work is to discover the concept of energy and its relation with the interaction of matter within our bodies– a physical matter that controls functions as well as the constant formation of matter and the spiritual energy that stores memories and produces ideas.
The artwork aims at creating a virtual body articulated conceptually in space enabling all that is theoretical and physical to interact freely.
Shady Elnoshokaty 2010